• Archive of "young adults" Category

    Loving My Worlds… and Wanting Them to Collide

    June 9, 2008 // 1 Comment »

    My position at Living Hope has been enigmatic to say the least. I am a Young Adult Pastor, but my task is not to create or run young adult programs per se. Instead, I have spent my time relationally connecting with young adults and seeking ways to help them connect to the broader church community as we try and let what it means to be the church flow from that.

    Young adults fall into 3 general categories: singles, young married couples, and young married couples with kids. I have been fortunate enough to be embraced by communities of all three types and yesterday was a microcosm of those worlds for me.

    Yesterday morning I socialized mainly with my house group, which is comprised exclusively of pre-kid, married couples. We collaborated to help one of those couples move and then I spent the afternoon with one of the married guys, Zach, checking out various neighborhoods and properties as we think towards the possibility of intentional community (post on that forthcoming!).

    Then, I had dinner with a slew of my friends who are married w/ small kids. We were celebrating Clay’s graduation as a Doctor of Physical Therapy. This is a great time for me – getting to see how parents deal with kid stuff, trying to love on them myself, and embracing the mess that simply must be embraced if sanity is to remain.

    Finally, last night I spent with a bunch of my single friends. People were really just hanging out and talking. We played a game my friends from Ohio lay claim to, “… and a bottle of wine,” and it was a great time.

    Each of these groups is of course incredibly unique and I treasure my time with all of these folks in accordance with that uniqueness. I am thinking more and more about how to help others discover the joy of sharing life with those in various stages of it, but in the meantime, boy am I thrilled that it’s something God has orchestrated for me. It’s just good for my soul.

    Posted in friends, intentional community, living hope, memphis, young adults

    A Gathering of Young Adults

    May 21, 2008 // 3 Comments »

    This past Sunday was great. Aside from out Sunday morning gathering being its usual awesomeness, a big group of young adults got together to play Ultimate Frisbee. We have had a few games already over the past few weeks, but we had some new folks show up this week and the two teams were really evenly matched. It was a beautiful day and I just loved it.

    Then, later that evening we had our first Gathering of Young Adults. SOS, one of the groups we have a partnership with in urban Memphis, allowed us to meet at their building (since we don’t have one) and it was a great environment for us. It was a great blend of some married and single young adults as well as some college students and even a few of those who are just graduating from high school. I was really excited about some friends who helped to lead us in our time together by offering prayers, leading communion, a responsive reading, etc. More than that, it was a time where people really got to participate in all we did by way of dialog, sharing, asking questions, etc. Aside from that, I really enjoyed how organic the evening felt. By that I mean that I basically knew everyone there. It wasn’t some sort of abstract event attended by a bunch of nameless faces. It was, for the most part, a gathering of all those I have had the opportunity to get to know over the last few months who in turn had more of a chance to see and get to know each other.

    For those Living Hope young adults who read this, I’d love to hear your thoughts about the evening and any suggestions you might have if we ever decide to do another one of these.

    Posted in friends, living hope, memphis, young adults

    Welcome to Memphis

    March 24, 2008 // 6 Comments »

    I haven’t had time yet to take my own shots, but here’s a great one of downtown Memphis that I found.

    (ht: piwojasne)

    I made it down to Memphis this past Thursday and my stuff followed closely behind me on Friday morning. Most of it is experiencing the lonely existence that is a storage unit.

    This past Sunday, Easter, was officially my first day with Living Hope. It’s been about 4 years since I worshiped regularly with more than 10-15 people, so it was quite the (re)experience. Everyone I met was tremendously friendly and the services were a refreshing celebration of the new that comes in Christ.

    I have had some time to tour the city. While Living Hope is a church community primarily situated in the suburbs of Memphis, it is also close to a lot of interesting segments of the city like Cooper-Young, Binghampton, Midtown, etc. I am currently staying with Greg, the student pastor at Living Hope and his roommate Russell and am trying to figure out where I might want to be on a more permanent basis. But, between trying to factor in where the majority of the congregation seems to be (Germantown/Collierville area), where the folks in whatever small group I end up being a part of are at, where young adults seem to spend their time, what I’ll be able to afford, what section of town I personally might enjoy most, and the fact that I would love to try and putt off some sort of intentional community sort of situation, it’s seems to be quite the task.

    I am tremendously excited to start connecting with the young adults of Living Hope and asking together what it is that God may want to do in and amongst us. This promises to be an interesting task for a few reasons.

    First, Living Hope is not really a programmatic community. That is to say, we have no real desire to offer every program under the sun to in order to appeal to everyone’s various felt needs and desires. As a result, we really emphasize a life lived in community which worships and serves together. Anything else that happens really flows out of that.

    Second, Living Hope is vitally concerned about making disciples and not merely Christians. This was one of the most attractive things about the church to me. For our community, everything hinges on whether or not people are actually becoming more like Christ. All our discussions, plans, and prayers as a staff revolve around this.

    I say that these reasons make for an interesting task regarding young adult ministry because most young adult ministries are primarily predicated on programs specific to young adults and doing those things which attract young adults.

    So, if I had been doing this job some years ago, the main question I would have been asking myself would have been, “What sorts of programs do we need to offer to get young adults involved in the church?” And I feel like I could have answered and executed that pretty well.

    But now what I am asking is more like, “What will it mean and look like for young adults to participate in the life of this community aimed at serving the world?” That is a very different question and one that I don’t feel like I have quite so easy answers for – which is why I’m so thrilled to be asking it!

    Posted in living hope, questions, young adults

    29 Changes

    March 12, 2008 // 1 Comment »

    I turned 29 this past Sunday. I had the opportunity to visit my family in California right at the end of February and got to celebrate with them. Then, this past week my brother Alex came in from NYC to see me, or maybe it had something to do with his girlfriend down in Columbus, but either way I got to spend some time with him and my mom. Then, my friends had a little birthday/going-away gathering last Friday night. “Going away?” you ask. Yes.

    29 marks probably the most significant new season of life to date. A newer missional community from down in Memphis contacted a friend and professor from out at Fuller, Ryan Bolger, looking for someone to join their team. Ryan connected us, and to skip over some of the pretty fun, but lengthy details, they invited me to join them as a young adult pastor. Not really thinking that I wanted to re-enter the world of paid church ministry, and certainly having no real ambitions to move to the South, I didn’t really think that much of it initially. But, as we started having conversations and then visits, I was overwhelmed by what it seemed like God was doing amongst this community. Living Hope is the sort of church community that I would move merely to be a part of. That I’ll get to do full-time what I midst want to do anyway – relational discipleship and community formation amongst young adults – is really just a pretty awesome bonus. Though there’s definitely a flood of emotions to wade through in something like this, mainly what I feel is a sense of excitement and anticipation.

    The other big news is that I apparently get to teach an online class with Fuller! I am working right now on writing up the course – The Emerging Church in the 21st Century and it’s scheduled to run this summer. I have had the opportunity to TA a whole slew of courses, but this will be my first crack at being an instructor (that title doesn’t scare me as much as – gulp – professor!). I had the opportunity to take this course with Dr. Eddie Gibbs, and then worked through a lot of the material with Ryan. With so much discussion happening about the emerging church and the group Emergent, it should prove to be a pretty interesting experience.

    I think that’s pretty much all the big stuff. I am still trying to nail down something with my house and making all the moving arrangements, but that stuff will all sort itself out I guess.

    So, thus begins year 29!

    Posted in birthday, christendom, community, decisions, discipleship, Fuller Seminary, living hope, spiritual formation, young adults

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